Activism for working folk.

2015.07.10

Around the table: "how to manufacture an anti-government 'crisis,'" and other tales.

Here's a painful but necessary reminder from Dave Johnson, in the context of the trouble the U.S. Postal Service is in: "how to manufacture an anti-government 'crisis': cut funding for a government service and put people who want to kill the service in charge of managing the service. Generate lots of press coverage of the resulting failings of the government agency involved. After a while the service is performing poorly and the public is getting upset. Declare a 'crisis' and say that government doesn’t work so 'reform' is needed. Of course the 'reforms' involve gutting the service, privatizing it, corporatizing it – anything but serving the public."

Alec Mento's *Penny Rants* books help you relive the horrors of the last 14 years of American politics, but with an improbable optimism and (per Kirkus Reviews) an "acerbic flair" and "a talent for distilling complex ideas into quickly digestible parts." And you can only get these books at Blunt Instruments; click the photo above (or type blunteye.com into your browser) to get them!